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By CATHY DYSON
Visitors and sponsors alike called the Discovery Days Festival at Aquia Landing this weekend a success--and said they can't wait for the next one.
"This has been great, it's been everything we could have hoped for," said Paul Milde, who represents Aquia District on the Stafford Board of Supervisors.
He hoped the two-day event would bring at least 5,000 people to the county park, which is at the confluence of Aquia Creek and the Potomac River.
When almost 6,000 showed up on Saturday alone--despite stifling temperatures near the 90s and little breeze from the water--Milde said he knew the event was a success. Steady crowds also attended the festival on Sunday, but attendance figures weren't available at press time.
The big draw was a replica of the Godspeed, one of three sailing ships that brought settlers to Jamestown in 1607.
The colony became the first permanent English settlement in America, but it might not have survived without Stafford connections. The Patawomeck Indians of Virginia gave the colonists food when they were starving, said Robert "Two Eagles" Green, chief of the tribe.
"In some essence, we saved Jamestown, but how many people living in Stafford County know that?" Green wondered.
Many festivalgoers had no idea what happened in the area over the centuries, said Jane Conner, a member of the Stafford County Historical Society.
"Shocked, they're absolutely shocked," she said. "They didn't realize Stafford had so much history. Especially the kids. They say, 'John Smith was here? Abraham Lincoln was here?'"
Indeed he was.
President Lincoln visited Aquia Landing six times during the Civil War--three in 1862 and three in 1863. The landing became a major depot for Union soldiers and their supplies.
"This was such a busy port" during the war, Conner said, as she pointed to photos showing sailing ships and freighters in the harbor and railroad cars nearby.
"Every day, one million pounds of food came in for the horses and mules," Conner said.
Two-and-a-half centuries earlier, Capt. John Smith visited Aquia Creek on trading missions.
In 1611, the Indian princess Pocahontas was there as well--and was kidnapped by an English captain.
Visitors appreciated those tidbits and seeing re-enactors practice skills that Indians and English settlers would have used in the days of the Jamestown colony.
Tammy Gillie, who lives in Falmouth, teaches at Upper Lafayette Elementary School in Fredericksburg. She wishes the Discovery Days festival would take place during the school year so her students could see it.
"I wish we could get the kids out here instead of going all the way to Jamestown," she said. "I think this is fabulous."
Nancy Stalik of Aquia Harbour watched her daughters--12-year-old Hana and 9-year-old Katrina--use giant wooden pestles to try to grind corn in an even larger wooden mortar.
The two barely made the carved sticks move, unlike 15-year-old demonstrator Caleb Bullock. He hit the pestles against the wood as if he were working to the beat of a drum.
"C'mon girls, at that rate we'll be here for three weeks," their mother said as the sisters labored.
Katrina had talked for three weeks about coming to Discovery Days. She wanted to see the replica of a ship she had read about in history books.
"It just looks old and cool," she said.
The Staliks hope Discovery Days becomes a regular event. "We would come every year," Nancy Stalik said.
Stafford Board Chairman Bob Gibbons hopes the county can duplicate the festival--if not annually, then at least, in two years. He's hoping that in 2008 the event can bring to Aquia Landing the replica of a ship used by Capt. Smith.
Stafford and the city of Fredericksburg worked together on this festival, said Gibbons. He especially praised the efforts of staff workers, such as Megan Orient, tourism manager for Stafford's Department of Economic Development.
Gibbons hopes to include other jurisdictions in future events.
"We think it's a discovery, and we want to use these types of events as a discovery for the region," he said.
The county took a gamble with the Discovery Days Festival, Gibbons said. No one knew if people would attend such an event in the middle of the summer.
Milde was in Boston in mid-July when the Godspeed visited as part of its tour of six East Coast cities. The weather was scorching hot, few people showed up and the event "was a bust," he said.
The county, which Milde said spent $50,000 on advertising, worried it might face the same fate. That's why county and city officials were thrilled with the turnout, he said.
So were participants, such as Green, the chief of the Patawomecks. He'd like to see such a festival offered regularly--and so would the public, "judging from the response we've had," he said.
"They said, 'Why haven't we done this before?'"
To reach CATHY DYSON:
Email: cdyson@freelancestar.com
